Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

“Jane Shore is the poet of little ambushes, moments that hold us hostage, moments when we come to life.” &#8212; Julia Alvarez

Since Robert Fitzgerald praised Eye Level, Jane Shores 1977 Juniper Prize-winning first collection, for its “cool but venturesome eye,” her work has continued to receive the highest accolades and attention from critics and fellow poets. That Said: New and Selected Poems extends Shores lifelong, vivid exploration of memory&#8212;her childhood in New Jersey, her Jewish heritage, her adult years in Vermont. Shores devotion to her familiar coterie of departed parents, aunts, uncles, and friends passionately subscribes to Sholem Aleichems dictum that “eternity resides in the past.”

United States Poet Laureate W. S. Merwin wrote, “Shores characters emerge with an etched clarity . . . She performs this summoning with a language of quiet directness, grace and exactness, clear and without affectations.” And while there is no “typical” Jane Shore poem, what unifies them is her bittersweet introspection, elegant restraint, provocative autobiography, and on every page a magnetic readability.

Review:

"Quietly serious, trustworthy and often sad, this sixth collection from Spires (Worldling) finds the poet preoccupied with first and last things: death, illness, age and debility take up much of the book, while ascetic religion, in the lives of monks and nuns, occupies more hopeful poems near the volume's end. Though only 58 years old, Spires looks back on her life as if from near its conclusion: 'Like an idiot child, I piled my pretty stones,/ knowing the waves would knock them down.' One of her best new poems considers the video game 'The Sims,' where 'Adults never get older & old people can do/ anything young people can do.' Again and again Spires depicts the flimsiness of all human life-defining 'house,' for example, as 'a leaf over my head.' Some will object, understandably, that Spires' new poems lack intellectual rigor-but they might well make up for that lack in their moving frailty, even giving us (as Spires sometimes implies) models for the later chapters in our own lives." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Synopsis:

A stunning new collection from a poet who 'made her name a watchword for serenity and poise' (Contemporary Poetry Review).

Synopsis:

A contemplative, witty new collection from a "jewel of a poet" ().

Synopsis:

This collection of poems by Jane Shore, one of America's most distinguished poets, traces the development of her career&#8212;from her first two award-winning volumes to a group of new poems that display her knack for discovering the uncanny in everyday experience.

Synopsis:

In Elizabeth Spires's sixth collection of poetry, the pilgrim soul, in its various guises, meditates on its own slow becoming, finding humble companions in creatures as unlikely as a lowly snail, a prehistoric coelacanth, or a tiny Japanese netsuke of a badger disguised as a monk. For Spires, life is both a pilgrimage and a deepening--birth, death, and transformation all part of a seamless continuum. Possessed of a calm, crystalline sense of eternity, her poems invite fellow travelers to sit for a little while and be cleansed of the dust of existence.

About the Author

Elizabeth Spires is the author of several volumes of poetry, including Now the Green Blade Rises and The Wave-Maker. She lives with her husband and daughter in Baltimore, Maryland, where she teaches at Goucher College.

"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Quietly serious, trustworthy and often sad, this sixth collection from Spires (Worldling) finds the poet preoccupied with first and last things: death, illness, age and debility take up much of the book, while ascetic religion, in the lives of monks and nuns, occupies more hopeful poems near the volume's end. Though only 58 years old, Spires looks back on her life as if from near its conclusion: 'Like an idiot child, I piled my pretty stones,/ knowing the waves would knock them down.' One of her best new poems considers the video game 'The Sims,' where 'Adults never get older & old people can do/ anything young people can do.' Again and again Spires depicts the flimsiness of all human life-defining 'house,' for example, as 'a leaf over my head.' Some will object, understandably, that Spires' new poems lack intellectual rigor-but they might well make up for that lack in their moving frailty, even giving us (as Spires sometimes implies) models for the later chapters in our own lives." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Synopsis"
by Hold All,
A stunning new collection from a poet who 'made her name a watchword for serenity and poise' (Contemporary Poetry Review).

"Synopsis"
by Norton,
A contemplative, witty new collection from a "jewel of a poet" ().

"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,
This collection of poems by Jane Shore, one of America's most distinguished poets, traces the development of her career&#8212;from her first two award-winning volumes to a group of new poems that display her knack for discovering the uncanny in everyday experience.

"Synopsis"
by Norton,
In Elizabeth Spires's sixth collection of poetry, the pilgrim soul, in its various guises, meditates on its own slow becoming, finding humble companions in creatures as unlikely as a lowly snail, a prehistoric coelacanth, or a tiny Japanese netsuke of a badger disguised as a monk. For Spires, life is both a pilgrimage and a deepening--birth, death, and transformation all part of a seamless continuum. Possessed of a calm, crystalline sense of eternity, her poems invite fellow travelers to sit for a little while and be cleansed of the dust of existence.

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